


A Woman of Destiny

by Darklady



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-06 22:50:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darklady/pseuds/Darklady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes a special sort of woman to rise in the SSR. Peggy Carter was always a special sort of woman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Woman of Destiny

“Happy birthday, Miss Peggy.” The maid held out a small package. Biscuits, Peggy spotted immediately, wrapped in a bit of last Christmas’s paper.

“Thank you.” She stole a glance at the folded bulk of the London Times waiting beside the breakfast table. In the top corner, tucked above the bold font headlines of the war news, ran the day and date. Right. She was eighteen today. 

“Yes. About that.” Mr. Wyndham, her Watcher, emerged from his library.

“Don’t worry, sir. I know better than to eat them before practice.” And really, she was an active young woman, so there was no reason for him to frown so deeply. While he might prefer her to follow a bland diet, she knew herself far more fit than the WVS girls who she passed on her morning runs. A few digestives wouldn’t ruin her fitness.

“Oh. Go ahead.” His wave was desultory. “You won’t be training.”

What? He couldn’t mean to give her the day off?

Her expression must have betrayed something of her thoughts, because after a moment he added, “We – that is to say the Council - received a telegraph early this morning from India. The new Slayer has been Called.”

A new Slayer had been called? In India? One who was…. “Not me?” The question came out, unintended and unwelcome.

“Indeed. “ He smiled thinly. “Most unfortunate, Miss Carter. I had hoped you would be able to fulfill your destiny.”

Fulfill his ambitions, more like. The Slayers watcher rose immediately to the Council level, and (given sufficient success on the part of his charge) might remain there after the power passed on. Especially if – as Margaret had secretly come to suspect - said Slayer met her inevitable fate in a suitably dramatic – to say nothing of heroic – manner. Margaret, to his disappointment, had remained stubbornly mortal and stubbornly alive.

“This, combined with your age…” He – in a manner most out of character – hesitated over his words. “Your time as a Potential is over.”

“Which means?” She refused to play the novel heroine with the plea of ‘what will become of me’. But truly, that was the question. Her last ten years has been spent – waking and sleeping – in training for a single task. Which that removed, what could she be good for?

“Fortunately, your family is eager to welcome you back.”

Willing to tolerate her presence, more like. Not that she thought they disliked her. Really, they had even been fond, in a distant way. Her mother had, Peggy recalled, shed a few tears as she had hugged her goodbye. It was just that Peggy was one more girl in a family buffeted by the winds of a world wide depression, and the good the Council connection could do her brother far outweighed the disadvantages of giving a surplus daughter over to of a life of martial discipline capped by early death.

“Betty may help you pack.” He took her silence as assent. “I will have your train ticket waiting for you by luncheon.”

“No need.” Not emotionally, and not practically. She had little enough of her own, and none that would be of use in any more common life. One utility dress as plain as the one she had on, one plain wool coat hanging in the coat closet, and one brown felt hat even plainer than the previous two. Wyndam had never been one to pay for fashion, and wartime rationing had put paid to any protest her adolescent self might have dared to offer.

Margaret Carter collected her purse from the hall shelf. The stakes would be useless going forward, and the compass little better, but the ten-pound note she carried (emergency money, her Watcher had informed her several years before, in case she had to follow a demon by train or taxi) would buy her a room for the night.

She picked up the paper also. The second headline on the front page read ‘Women's Auxiliary Air Force now Recruiting’. Smiling over her shoulder, she added. “I have another call on my services.”

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©KKR 2013

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: This was somewhat inspired by Star Spangled Man by Jaded. Not that I make any claims whatsoever on her universe – just that I thank her for the idea of Buffy as Peggy’s granddaughter. And if, as some speculate, the slayer calling runs in the bloodline? Well… Musey gets ideas.


End file.
